


Lover's Eyes

by moonflowers



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Blow Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Thomas with glasses yo, Voyeurism, although technically they're imaginary, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 07:49:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3602106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonflowers/pseuds/moonflowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Thomas' recently acquired reading glasses push Jimmy into admitting what he hasn't been able to before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lover's Eyes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [betsey_trotwood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/betsey_trotwood/gifts), [flippyspoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/gifts).



> Valentines fic for Betsey and Flippy, who asked for Thomas with glasses, and Jimmy wanting to watch Thomas touch himself before they bang.  
> Title is shamefully stolen from Mumford and Sons, for no other reason than I like them and it's about eyes.

_Thomas comes in from the cold, colour high in his cheeks, and his glasses – a recent addition – steam up in the stuffy air of the servants’ hall. He smiles at Jimmy, only ever seems to smile at Jimmy and mean it, as he shrugs off his coat. Jimmy stands from his place at the table, chair legs grating on the floor tiles, and maybe it falls maybe it doesn’t, it doesn’t much matter either way. Almost without knowing how he got there, he’s standing close to Thomas, close enough that he can feel Thomas’ stuttering breath on his cheek, see his own face reflected in the smooth surface of the glasses. For once, he disregards his own image in favour of bunching his hands in the lapels of Thomas’ jacket, closing the scant inches between them and leaning up to kiss him. It’s by no means elegant; in his enthusiasm Jimmy knocks their teeth together, and he pulls Thomas so close he can feel the frame of his glasses pressing into his cheek. Eventually, the need to breathe properly forces him to break the kiss and pull away._

_Thomas looks down at him, face pink and lips kiss-swollen, glasses slid to the end of his nose. Jimmy reaches out a finger to push them back up, and Thomas blinks at the closeness. Something changes in his face. The startled, wary look he wore when Jimmy first kissed him is gone, replaced by the neat little smirk Jimmy knows and loves so well he could have sketched it, if he had the skill. All at once, Thomas is again the fox rather than the rabbit, and he mouths at Jimmy’s neck, hands slipping down around his middle and further, to splay over his backside. Jimmy’s pulse jumps under Thomas’ lips, but before he has time to do anything other than gasp at the feeling of Thomas’ tongue on his skin he’s pulled away._

_Any disappointment Jimmy may have felt is short-lived, as Thomas has turned his attention to the fastening of Jimmy’s trousers. He kneels in front of him, clever hands freeing his cock from his clothing, glancing up quickly to Jimmy’s face in silent question. He stares down at the sharp, pale eyes looking up at him over the rim of his glasses, and just about manages to nod in affirmation. Please. Jimmy’s eyes fall shut when Thomas brings his lips to his cock, but he forces them open again – he refuses to miss a moment of this. Thomas teases him with little licks and kisses to sensitive skin, and Christ, Jimmy should guessed he’d be so good, so infuriatingly clever with his mouth. Eventually, he deigns to take Jimmy into his mouth, little by little, and from the soft hum he gives from the back of his throat, he’d enjoying this as much as Jimmy is. His glasses slip down to the end of his nose as Jimmy’s cock bumps his throat. They both jolt, and Jimmy wonders if Thomas will choke, but of course he doesn’t, he only begins to bob his head in an easy rhythm, hair falling in his eyes._

“Jimmy?”

“Mm?” _He runs his fingers through soft dark hair, pushing it back from his face…_

 _“Jimmy.”_

“Did you say something?” Jimmy absently rocked his hips, but there was nothing there besides the stifling press of his trousers, thankfully hidden under the servants’ hall table. Oh. Oh. He blinked himself back into reality, his face growing warm as the realisation of his current situation hit him.

“Jimmy, what’s the matter?” He looked up to see Thomas frowning at him in concern across the table, those damnable glasses part way down his nose as he looked over the top of the paper. 

“I – what?” It took him a moment to separate the imaginary Thomas who’d been sucking his cock mere moments ago from the real one, who most definitely was not.

“Are you feeling alright? You look a bit warm.”

 _Am I heck._ “No. I mean yes,” he swallowed, face hotter still with the memory of his recent imaginings. “I’m fine.” He’d be a damn sight better if he could work up the courage to act on them, honestly.

“If you say so,” Thomas clearly didn’t believe a word of it, but went back to his paper all the same. And that’s where Jimmy would have left it, if he’d had any sense.

“I just…” Jimmy blurted, and Thomas raised an eyebrow at him, “glasses suit you, is all.”

“Thank you,” said Thomas quietly, after what felt an age, faint flush of pleasure at Jimmy’s compliment colouring his face in return. “Maybe you should get to bed a bit early tonight if you can, though. Just in case.”

Jimmy nodded, and focused his attention on the now cold cup of tea on the table top. That was all well and good – in fact he’d very much like to be alone as soon as possible, take the matter in hand, as it were – but it’d be a while before he was in any fit state to stand and leave the table. 

~

He did go up to bed reasonably early, in the end. Only because Molesley had lumbered in and started talking about some novel he was slogging through, which bored Jimmy to tears but on the plus side did effectively diminish his erection. When the other footman finally paused to draw breath, Jimmy scrambled to his feet. 

“Night then,” he said loudly, cutting through Molesley’s attempted continuation. “I think I’ll have an early one,” he exchanged a look with Thomas in acknowledgement of their earlier chat, “I do feel a bit funny after all.” Amid his assurances that he’d be just dandy after some sleep, and a chorus of ‘good night’s’ from the others, Jimmy finally got upstairs away from their silly nattering.

He’d noticed it coming on worse ever since Thomas had gotten the sodding reading glasses. If he was utterly, brutally honest with himself – not something he made a habit of – it had started well before then. It must’ve been months now, since he’d first caught himself staring overly long at the under butler over breakfast, or when they served dinner. Some nights, on the edge of wakefulness, he would drift off to comfortable, heavy thoughts of falling asleep twisted up together in warm sheets, the vague weight of Thomas’ body and an unconsciously familiar smell of soap and cigarettes. It’d been a bit alarming to start with, the increasing frequency of mornings he’d wake up aching for the want of him. But he’d always pushed it aside and found some excuse for it – that he’d been having a dream about the girl who worked in the pub, or that Thomas’ mouth reminded him of the pout of a girl in a picture postcard he’d had in the war. It hadn’t been until some weeks later again, when Thomas had come back from Ripon with the thrice damned reading glasses, that Jimmy’d been forced to admit what it all meant to himself.

He’d known Thomas was getting glasses; the under butler been complaining about it on and off for days beforehand. Made him feel old, he’d said. Jimmy had jokingly told him he could see numerous grey hairs amongst the dark, and got an elbow to the ribs for his trouble. So he knew it was coming yes, but it was a whole different matter when Thomas had whipped the damn things out as soon as he’d gotten back from town, face still pink with cold when he’d put them on and grimly asked Jimmy what he thought. It had taken Jimmy a while to answer, given that he was faced with the sudden and unexpected desire to shove Thomas up against the wall and kiss him. He managed to choke out some kind of response eventually, and though Thomas had seemed unimpressed by whatever he’d said, Jimmy had other things to worry about. After that, it became rather impossible to ignore all the weeks, months maybe, that he’d wanted him. And equally impossible to keep himself in order whenever Thomas wore those ruddy glasses.

“Jimmy?”

A knock at his door interrupted his reliving the past weeks of awkwardness. It was Thomas, of course.

“Are you decent?”

Jimmy snorted. _No, I don’t think I am._ “Come in.”

Thomas opened the door but didn’t come in, his jacket slung over his shoulder and a lock of hair fallen loose. “Just wondered how you were feeling.” And Jimmy was never quite sure what it was that made up his mind; whether it was desire, mere impulse, or the fact that Thomas was about the only person living who would care to sincerely ask after his wellbeing, but Jimmy knew with startling clarity that he must tell Thomas how he felt. Right now.

“No actually,” his voice shook, “I’m not alright.” _Oh God._

“Oh?” Thomas’ face arched into careful concern. Thankfully the reading glasses were in his hand rather than on his nose – Jimmy’s composure would have suffered a great deal more if he’d been wearing the damn things.

“Come in a sec. And close the door?”

“If you want.” It clicked shut behind him.

“Sit down, would you?” Jimmy patted the empty space next to him on the bed. After the slightest hesitation, Thomas sat.

“You’re not ill, are you?” he said, not looking at Jimmy, busying himself laying his jacket on the blanket so it wouldn’t wrinkle.

“No, no. I might’ve thought so once, but… that’s not… no, I’m not ill.”

“Right.” Jimmy wasn’t sure if Thomas sounded concerned or merely unimpressed by his muddled words. “Well, what then?”

Where the bloody hell was he supposed to start? “You know when you’re wrong about something, really, unbelievably wrong?”

Thomas gave a funny, humourless laugh. “I’m familiar with it Jimmy, yes.” Ah. Right.

“I didn’t mean that,” he said sharply. That was the last thing he wanted to talk about now. They might have to at some point, but it could keep a day or two. “I mean that you spend your whole life thinking of yourself one way, and then you suddenly realise that’s not you at all. You know?”

“Honestly Jimmy, no.”

 _Oh right of course, Mr I’ve always known who I am and I’m totally at ease with myself._ “Right then. Or maybe that there’s something… someone, in your life that you think couldn’t possibly be any better than it is – than they are – but suddenly it hits you that it could be?” God, he was making a hash of this.

Thomas pursed his lips. “Are you sure you’re not ill?”

“I sodding fancy you, alright?” Jimmy hissed. The silence of the room following his declaration seemed cavernous. Jimmy battled with the childish urge to hide under the blankets and never come out.

“…Oh.”

“I… I reckon I have done for ages, actually,” he pressed on, because it really couldn’t get any more embarrassing by this point. “But there was always some excuse to pretend I didn’t. We were friends, and that was that, I thought, all neat and tidy. But it’s not, is it. It’s a bloody mess, me and you.”

“Jimmy –”

“But it’s alright, because I think I know how to sort it. I think that I – “ he had to look away, down at where his own hands were twisted together in his lap, “I love you, Thomas. It just… it sounds stupid but it took you getting them ruddy glasses to make me realise, of all things.”

“Are you saying you – you love me because I got glasses?”

“No I’m not saying that. It just made me think about you… in that way, and I – “ he paused. “You’re having me on, aren’t you.”

Thomas’ lips twitched. “Maybe.”

They looked at each other, the feeling of teetering just on the edge of something that could easily fall one way or another, until Jimmy decided he’d had enough uncertainty for today. “Are you going to kiss me now, or what?”

Thomas huffed in quiet laughter, his breath on Jimmy’s cheek, before he reached up to put a hand there instead. Jimmy looked right into his eyes, fleetingly annoyed with how bloody soppy this whole thing was, before Thomas’ lips brushed his and he more or less lost the ability to think. His hands came to rest on Thomas’ shoulders, fingers curling into him hard enough that it probably hurt, but he couldn’t let go and Thomas didn’t say anything.  
Jimmy leaned forward to kiss him a little harder, shifting his weight on the bed as he did so, his cock pressing against Thomas’ hip. The sensation was alarmingly acute and he dimly heard somebody moan. When he realised the noise had come from his own throat, it threw him into a bizarre state of panic. Now that his lewd fantasies were coming to life, it was suddenly very clear that that was all they had been – fantasy – and the reality of having Thomas in his bed, hands and mouth on him at long last, the physical sensation of the thing, was a different matter entirely. It was too soon. He wrenched himself away.

“Thomas, wait.” His voice sounded wrecked.

“What is it?” He kissed down Jimmy’s neck.

“I can’t.”

“Oh,” Thomas pulled back from him, his lips kiss-swollen and looking a little dazed. “That’s alright, we don’t have to – do anything.”

“No. No, I want to,” the pulsing heat between his legs was more than enough proof of the fact. Thomas looked so tense, every inch of his body taught with expectation, his arousal obvious under his trousers. Jimmy’s mouth was dry. And fuck he did want, really he did, but he couldn’t bring himself to have Thomas touch him like that yet. Kissing was fine, wonderful even, but it was just too much. “I just… it’s new.”

“It’s alright,” Thomas kissed just under his ear, and Jimmy practically shivered in delight. “There’s no rush.” 

“I know,” said Jimmy, “I know. But I want…” he absently reached down to run his finger’s lightly over his cock, sighing in frustration, “…something.” He thought back to one of his favourite imaginings, Thomas stretched across his bed, lazily stroking himself as Jimmy looked on, together but not. “I... there’s something I want to try. If you want to, that is.”

“The fact that you even have to ask is –”

“I want you to touch yourself,” he said in a rush, wanting the words out of his mouth and hanging in the air between them for as short a time as possible, “and I – I want to watch you.”

Thomas blinked at him, face visibly darkening and lips parted in surprise. Jimmy wanted to press his finger there. And then, so inevitable it felt as though he were dreaming a familiar dream, or watching one of his own imaginings unfold, Thomas’ disbelief vanished as his face tightened into that neat little smirk that Jimmy loved so much, and he nodded. “Alright.”

“I – good.” Right. Well, that was that then.

With one last squeeze of Jimmy’s hand, Thomas shifted back so that he leant against the headboard, while Jimmy still sat at the foot of the bed. He was looking at Jimmy, hard, with a hint of defiance, as though he expected Jimmy to suddenly declare it all a joke at his expense. Jimmy didn’t think he’d ever felt more serious. 

“Do it,” Jimmy was practically licking his lips. Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Please.”

The tightness of Thomas’ face flickered as he palmed the front of his trousers, cheeks pinker by the second, and he looked more and more like he did in Jimmy’s imaginings. Though there was one very obvious error.

“Wait,” said Jimmy, and Thomas stilled.

“Something wrong?” he said thickly. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. Jimmy wanted to lick it.

“No I – could you wear your glasses?” he said, careful to look Thomas in the eye as he spoke, though his voice came out weaker than he’d have liked.

Thomas snorted. “My my Mr Kent,” he said as he pulled them from his pocket, “the surprises are coming thick and fast from you today.” He slid them onto his nose, and Jimmy’s strength almost gave out entirely just from seeing the very thing he’d dwelt on for so long. “You’re a dark horse, you are.”

Thomas went back to touching himself, Jimmy mesmerised by the shifting of his hand. Eventually he unfastened his trousers and slid a hand inside, groaning deeply in relief, and Jimmy couldn’t even see his cock but oh Lord the things the sight was doing to him. 

“Do you think of this a lot Jimmy?” Thomas asked with a slight hitch in his voice that no smirk could cover up. “Me in your bed, touching my cock?”

“Ugh… yes.” Jimmy was unable to stop himself from rubbing at the front of his own trousers.

“Well I definitely think of you in mine,” he said, with a flash of a smile, and Jimmy abstractly thought that he’d always known Thomas would be his undoing, one way or another. It was likely Thomas thought the same of him.

“Let me see you,” Jimmy said, eyes still fixed on the steady movement of Thomas’ hand, “please.”

“As you say,” Thomas said, and eased his cock from his drawers and trousers, and Jimmy lost any shred of self-control he’d had left, reaching into his own clothing to bring himself off. Apparently Thomas rather appreciated the sight, as he swallowed and his hand began to move faster. “Lord but you’re beautiful, Jimmy.”

Jimmy looked from where Thomas’ hand worked to his face. The glasses had slid to the end of his nose, face flushed darker than ever, pink creeping down his neck. Those damn glasses. Those wonderful, stupid, handsome, damn things… Thomas bit his lip to keep back a noise, his eyes fluttering behind the glasses and Jimmy came, hard and unexpected, hunched forward at the foot of the bed and gasping for air.

“Ughh Thomas…”

“Jimmy.”

At the sound of his own whispered name, Jimmy managed to look up just in time to see the tendons in Thomas’ neck tighten, his mouth fall open as his hips stuttered and he came over his hand. Jimmy vaguely wished he hadn’t come already, because it was the most ravishing thing he’d ever seen.  
Thomas regained his composure quickly, much quicker than Jimmy had done, and used his clean hand to push the glasses back up his nose.

Jimmy wiped his hand on the sheets. Thomas wrinkled his nose and took a handkerchief from his pocket to sort himself out. He hadn’t even managed to button his trousers before Jimmy was kissing him, the long awaited feel of the glasses frame pressing into his cheek.

“Thank you,” he mumbled into Thomas’ ear.

“It were hardly a chore,” he rubbed at the back of Jimmy’s neck.

“I didn’t mean for that. Or not only for that, anyway. For understanding.”

“I’m not stupid enough to mess things up with you twice.”

“Mm.” That was lucky, because Jimmy had the feeling he’d probably balls things up once or twice himself, if they really were going to do this.


End file.
